Home
by AnnieO741
Summary: The 10th Doctor spends some quiet time remembering home.


"That one right there." He pointed to, what most would have assumed, was a random star in a sky full of billions. "That's where the best chips in the universe can be found." He glanced over and smiles at his companion. "And I should know, been to millions of chip shops I have. I'm over nine hundred years old, I am." His companion simply yawned in reply.

"Right. Yep, I agree, boring that. Let's see." He glances back up to the sky and chooses another star. "Ooooooo…the Bacloren cluster, that's nasty place. No indoor loos. And last time I was there they tried to take my head off. Imagine that. Me. With no head…I wonder if I would run around like a chicken." He shudders at the thought. "Lets skip that one shall we?" He cast his eyes to another point in the sky. "That's a lovely spot," He points to a green speck of light. "The Ocolooco Empire." He glanced over at his companions giggle and tapped her nose with a finger. "Oi! That's rude, no Ocolooco wickleberry jam for you."

He watched the grin fade from her face as she arranged a perfect pout. "That's cheating!" He flashed a pout-y face back at her. She simply reached out and grabbed his tie and started chewing on it. "That's not dinner." He removed said tie from her mouth. "Right you pick this time."

He watched as she blinked her big brown eyes at him then giggled and randomly waved her hand up to the stars. He looked over to where her little fingers had pointed and suddenly felt a stab to his hearts. The chosen star was amber; it shined alone in the night sky, "Kasterborous."

In his mind he could still hear the screams, see the faces, and remember the emptiness in his psyche as everything was ripped from him in one act…one choice. Save universe. Loose everything.

In the end there was never really a choice.

It was in that instant that he realized choice had been taken from his hands and the realization had slapped him like a steel glove across skin, cutting into his very core. Everything he had fought his entire life to get away from, to toss behind him like so much unwanted rubbish, suddenly he found himself wanting to cling to it, to protect it to the end.

The end came sooner then expected. In the guise of creatures he had the power to destroy millennia ago. This was the price for his compassion, as Arcadia was the price for his arrogance. So he teetered on the razor's edge.

Save…Loose…

Save…Loose…

Save…

There was never a choice. Not really, though he had clung to the idea that there was, but in the end there was no choice to be made. Burn…

Then his mind was silent.

"Kasterborous." He took a deep breath and locked the memories back into the dark depths of his consciousness, and away from the tiny spark that now inhabited the once empty space. He looked back to the woman beside him and felt his heart twinge at the sorrowful look that graced her perfect features. He had forgotten she could hear him.

"Sorry," He cuddled her close and sent a mental flash so full of love that soon had her grinning at him again. "You would have loved it." He lay back onto the grass and settled her onto his chest. "The sky's a burnt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty glass dome, shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever – slopes of deep red grass, capped with snow."

Tenderly he rubbed her back as she happily chewed on his tie and snuggled into his warmth. "I grew up in the shadows of the Southern Ranges at the base on Mt. Lung near the river Cadonflood." He grinned. "I remember always being the bane of the Cousins, never wanted to sit still at lessons, never cared about all of the nitty-gritty…" he paused at the memory and grinned, "I like that have remembered that one." He chuckled. "I had more important things to do. Cousin Innocence swore I had the attention span of a Golbian Crex."

"I was… the black sheep of the family in a matter of speaking, since I'm clearly not black or a sheep. I would make a funny looking sheep don't you think?" His companion simply smiled at him in a natural form of agreement. "Soooo…anyway, I had this one little bad habit…okay maybe not one, but it was little…teeny-tiny itsy-bitsy bad habit, of well…wandering off, for say a few hours, or a couple of days, maybe a month that one time..." As he trailed off, he glanced down, and seeing her grin went on to say; "That doesn't mean you get to wander off."

"I learned so much by just being me. I met this Hermit you see. Lived up on the mountain, had been for as long as I could remember. The cousins told me to keep away from him, that he was unbalanced, but he showed me that their was so much more to the world, than the narrow mindedness of people too afraid of change to even begin to see."

He gently caressed her hair as she yawned and her eyes drifted shut. "He taught me that one person could make a difference, and that change is something to embrace, not to fear. He taught me that the universe is so full of life and all of it deserved a chance to grow." He closed his eyes. "He taught me that the choices we make are not always the ones we want. He's gone now, like all the others."

He sighed. "I spent my whole life trying to runaway from everything Gallifrey was, and now all I want is to see the second sun rising in the south, and the mountains shining. To see the leaves on the silver trees, and watch them catch the light every morning, it looked like a forest on fire. To feel the breeze blow and listen to it sore through the branches like a song." He could hear the soft fall of footsteps behind him, but he kept his eyes closed and concentrated on the images in his mind. "What I would do, to just go home one last time."

He heard the footfalls stop beside him and the sound of cloth against cloth as she settled on the grass next to him. He sighed as a hand brushed through his hair and another settled over his own hands resting on his chest.

"Would you?"

He opened his eyes and looked at the one beside him. "Would I what?"

"Go home…if you could?"

There was a pause of contemplative silence. He glanced down at the trusting one sleeping on his chest and then back again to the woman bedside him. "Come 'ere." He moved one arm and wrapped it around her as she settled beside him in the grass. "You see that" He pointed to the single blue star in the sky.

"Yeah, that's where Earth is right?"

He nodded. "Would you go home?" He looked into her brown eyes.

She smiled and tenderly touched his cheek. "I am home."

He stroked his daughter's back as he pulled Rose closer. "So am I."


End file.
